Kotaku - Gaming's Biggest Problem Is That Nobody Wants To Talk.The biggest problem in gaming today is that the gaming industry thinks we're all out to get them. They think gamers are the enemy, a group that needs to be treated with disdain and avoided whenever possible. They think the only way to fool us into buying their products is to cover everything in a shroud of secrecy, only drip-feeding us pretty trailers and juicy soundbites during carefully-tailored marketing campaigns. They think we should just sit there and lap it up.

I'm not sure the extra sales at a 40-dollar price point justify a 25% price cut.

I think I forgot to mention an important part of my example. Max Payne 3 for me was a fail. I didn't like it. I paid $40 and quit playing after an hour or two because it wasn't holding my attention. Never went back. There have been many other games that have done this and if I paid $60 for them I was pissed. Furious in fact.

$40 doesn't get me as mad. I bought BF3 on pc for $35 shortly after launch and ended up in a very similar situation and again...it sucks I dont' like it but at $40 or less price point I can move on.

The whole "one price fits all" solution they expect consumers to play along with is a joke. $60 is not an amount of money I can just laugh off and say, "Oh well, no biggie."

The original article was trying to discuss the whole angry gamer / developer cycle that seems to be getting worse. The problem is that not everyone is going to like your game and offering only one price to everyone regardless if they end up liking your game and playing it 80 hours or hate it and quit after an hour is creating this rage.

The industry standard of no returns ever is fueling this because as publishers desperately try and get more money out of gamers it's pissing more and more people off.

Lowering prices would counter some of this tsunami of rage that seems to be always building. Offer a return policy. Give some sign that you appreciate people spending money on your products. The companies that do this seem to be having none of these problems. It's not rocket science. The devs / pubs who are getting shouted down anytime they come up to say anything have been acting like a bunch of assholes.